Ends tomorrow

The Lower Mainland’s newest online marketplace will open on Monday, April 28, when LikeItBuyItVancouver.com begins previewing a limited-time sale of everything from household goods to consumer electronics to cruises, travel, cars, gift cards and personal services.

The Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River near Cascade Locks, Ore. British Columbia, which has received $3 billion in proceeds from the sale of downstream benefits in the past 15 years, is preparing to argue its case in the face of U.S. calls for a clawback.

Photograph by: Rick Bowmer
, AP

VICTORIA — With a year of decision approaching on the Columbia River Treaty, the B.C. Liberals are preparing to defend the province’s lucrative share of the benefits from the long-standing cross-border water management agreement.

“The ongoing impacts to the Canadian Columbia Basin to meet treaty requirements should be acknowledged and compensated for,” says B.C.’s recommendation for the Canadian side in talks on reopening the treaty that are expected next year.

“The level of benefits to the province, which is currently primarily in the form of the Canadian entitlement, does not account for the full range of benefits in the U.S. or the impacts in B.C.”

This at a time when the Americans argue the opposite.

“An imbalance has developed in the equitable sharing of the downstream power benefits resulting from the treaty,” says the most recent recommendations on a negotiating stance from the U.S. side.

“The estimated value of the Canadian share of the downstream benefits is significantly greater than anticipated, and far exceeds the value of coordinated power operations under the treaty.”

The downstream benefits, a.k.a. the Canadian entitlement, was the treaty-makers’ attempt to compensate B.C. for the construction of huge storage dams (extensively flooding several valleys) to reduce flood risk on the American side.

The entitlement is the estimated amount of hydroelectric power generated on the U.S. side as a result of B.C. evening the flow of water in the river. The province sells the electricity in the U.S. at market prices.

Over the past decade and a half, sale of the downstream benefits has generated more than $3 billion in provincial revenues. The American position is that the payout ought to be slashed to roughly $25 million a year.

Either side can give notice of an intention to terminate the 1964 treaty once the 50th anniversary of implementation is reached next September, though the current terms would remain locked in until 2024 to provide ample leeway for renegotiation.

In anticipation of talks starting next year, agencies on both sides of the border are preparing recommendations for the respective Canadian and U.S. governments.

The B.C. draft recommendations were released this week, before the latest in a series of public consultations. Final recommendations will go to cabinet before the end of the year.

On the U.S. side there’s speculation that a renegotiated treaty would provide improved ecosystem protection and cheaper power, both funded by a clawback of the Canadian entitlement.

“Canada increasingly enjoys a lopsided benefit of power generated on the U.S. portion of the river system,” as the Portland Oregonian newspaper editorialized recently. “Federal documents show a so-called Canadian entitlement as ‘outdated and no longer equitable, resulting in unnecessarily excessive cost to regional utility ratepayers.’ ”

Pushing back against those assumptions, the B.C. position says that in any renegotiated treaty, the Canadian entitlement ought to be valued in terms of all the benefits generated on the U.S. side.

“All downstream U.S. benefits, such as flood risk management, hydropower, ecosystems, water supply, recreation, navigation and any other relevant benefits, including associated risk reduction arising from coordinated operations compared to alternatives available to each country, should be accounted for and such value created should be shared equitably between the two countries.”

The broader benefits to agriculture were highlighted in a timely submission to the U.S side, from an association representing irrigation districts that are heavily dependent on a steady supply of water from the Columbia.

“Irrigation districts are concerned that modifications to the treaty could impact existing flow augmentation to meet (ecosystem) requirements and as a result cause some districts and other water suppliers to lose the ability to withdraw water for beneficial irrigation use,” wrote the Oregon Water Resources Centre in a submission filed this week.

“Water from the Columbia River system is used to irrigate more than 7.3 million acres of land in the basin, which is a key economic driver for Oregon and the region as well as ensuring food security for the nation,” the letter continued.

“Water supplies are already strained and a loss or further reduction in irrigation deliveries can cause both immediate and long-term damage to the agricultural economy and severe detriment to the existing environmental efforts (of) irrigators.”

The letter goes on to raise an opportunity for creating “additional storage of water in Canada” for U.S. agricultural purposes, scarcely an argument for threatening the Canadian side with a reduced entitlement under the treaty.

Not the last word on the complexities of reopening the treaty by any means. The B.C. recommendations also touch on the challenges posed by climate change, the need to involve First Nations on both sides of the border, and the opportunities for strengthening flood-control provisions on both sides of the border.

The province also rejects overloading the talks with matters that have nothing to do with the terms of the treaty, such as restoring salmon runs wiped out by construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s, decades before the treaty was implemented.

The overall B.C. message being that it will be challenging enough to preserve the existing benefits of the treaty in any renegotiation, without trying to add any new ones.

The Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River near Cascade Locks, Ore. British Columbia, which has received $3 billion in proceeds from the sale of downstream benefits in the past 15 years, is preparing to argue its case in the face of U.S. calls for a clawback.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Latest updates

Former 2010 Olympics CEO John Furlong has dropped a defamation lawsuit against the journalist who wrote a story alleging he was verbally and physically rough on native students when he was a young teacher in Northern B.C. decades ago.

A new survey ranks Vancouver as the busiest city in Canada when it comes to traffic. The results, published in TomTom’s fifth annual Traffic Index, looks at 218 cities across the globe and ranks them based on how congested their roads can be during peak travel times throughout the day.